heron
pronunciation
How to pronounce heron in British English:
UK [ˈherən]
How to pronounce heron in American English:
US [ˈhɛrən]
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- Noun:
- gray or white wading bird with long neck and long legs and (usually) long bill
Word Origin
- heron
- heron: [OE] Heron may well have originated in imitation of the bird’s cry, for its source was probably Indo-European *qriq- (whence also Russian krichat’ ‘call out, shout’). From this was descended prehistoric Germanic *khaigaron (source of Swedish häger ‘heron’), which was borrowed into Old French as hairon. English took it over as heron or hern (the latter now a memory surviving in personal names and placenames, such as Earnshaw).
- heron (n.)
- c. 1300, from Old French hairon (12c.), earlier hairo (11c., Modern French héron), from Frankish *haigiro or some other Germanic source, from Proto-Germanic *hraigran (cognates: Old High German heigaro "heron," German Reiher, Dutch reiger, Old Norse hegri), from PIE *qriq-, perhaps imitative of its cry (compare Old Church Slavonic kriku "cry, scream," Lithuanian kryksti "to shriek"). Old English cognate hraga did not survive into Middle English.
Example
- 1. The bittern booms and heron wades ;
- 2. The largest and most widespread heron in north america .
- 3. The heron is one of the uk 's largest native birds and grey herons are also common around garden ponds .
- 4. A great blue heron holds a small fish after catching it in a pond in roseburg , us
- 5. Hong kong closed its mai po nature preserve as a precaution for 21 days from friday , after a dead grey heron found there also tested positive for bird flu .